Absolution
by trepidationBLAH
Summary: Sometime after midnight, Sakura throws practicality to the wind and Sasuke learns to accept forgiveness. Oneshot, AU. SasuSaku.


One disgustingly humid summer night, sometime near the end of July, Sakura bemoans her utter sleeplessness, tosses aside her blankets, and slides open the glass door to her balcony. Blinking against the purple-blue-black of after-midnight, she glances down at the rusty tin of pebbles in her left hand, and then looks up toward the balcony of the neighboring house.

She considers.

Looks down, looks back up.

Oh, what the hell.

* * *

One disgustingly humid summer night, sometime near the end of July and significantly post-midnight – and therefore a completely inappropriate time to still be conscious – Sasuke startles awake to the sharp ping-ping-ping of pebbles tossed lazily at his balcony door. A bright voice eventually filters through his sleepy haze.

"Sasuke-kun! Wake up! Sasuke-kun!"

The boy in question ignores the near-constant chanting of his name, which, though whisper-shouted across ten feet of after-midnight and curtains and thin glass, manages to carry with it a sense of urgency, of excitement and anticipation; instead, Sasuke ducks his head down and does his best to sleep like Naruto does after waking up briefly for an 8 a.m. history lecture.

Sakura, unfortunately, knows him – of course she does, after ten years of friendship and neighborship and_ Sasuke-kun will you go out with me?_ and _How could you do this, you're no better than the rest of your family, Sasuke-kun_ and later,_ I forgive you. I forgive you Sasuke-kun but this means you have you drive me anywhere and everywhere_ and then this:

"Wake up, Sasuke-kun, you wuss! Or I'll throw myself at your balcony, not just some stupid rocks – and so help me, if you aren't there to catch me I will probably fall and break more than an arm this time aro – "

He scrambles off his bed and blames the nagging sense of panic on it being after-midnight and most certainly not on haunting memories or lingering guilt or Sakura's exasperating tendency to unwittingly injure herself at every opportunity. By the time the balcony door slides back fully, Sakura is still only mid-rant. She's prolonging her heated whispers now more out of years of habit than any doubt that Sasuke is already awake and probably pissed as hell. She knows him, after all.

So when Sasuke steps out onto the still-warm concrete of his balcony, Sakura grins unabashedly and makes to climb onto the railings, her pajama pant legs hitched to above her knees and the can of pebbles abandoned at her feet. "Geez, Sasuke-kun, what took you so long? I almost ran out of pebbles – do you see? Look! Look upon my near empty can – do you know how many hours – days – I spent to collect all that? – and – and – geez, Sasuke-kun. Geez."

Sakura pauses expectantly and waits for Sasuke's grunt of affirmation to prove that yes, of course he'd been listening to her beautiful and melodious voice and yes, yes he would catch her if she flung herself haphazardly through the night in the general direction of him and/or his balcony. Except that Sakura is, above all, a Practical girl and does not savor the idea of more broken bones – or broken anythings, now that she thinks about it.

Around then she remembers that she had, in fact, woken Sasuke up for a reason other than to bother him and rail at him for not waking up. Sasuke, evidently, realizes this as well, because he is standing directly opposite her, on his own balcony, trying not to shift uncomfortably in his manjamas (this is where Sakura stifles a giggle and pretends she doesn't find portmanteau words, especially those concerning the adjective 'man', absolutely hilarious) and the after-midnight breeze.

So Sakura clears her throat, smoothes down her pajama pants, and, in an impressively majestic and somber voice, proclaims:

"Sasuke-kun. Your body…it is simply…delectable. I have come for it. No, no, don't make a fuss. I promise you—if you leave with me, you will know the true meaning of _power_. And, you know, if I happen to molest you along the way it's only to be expected, because I am a pervert and a pedophile and—"

"Sakura," Sasuke grits his teeth, "What do you want?" It is at least two in the morning and Sasuke does not take kindly to people rousing him in the middle of the night to remind him of his past idiocies, not even Sakura, who has subjected him to at least ten years and counting of friendship and/or neighborship. Sasuke is, even more so than Sakura, a Practical boy, and he believes a good night of sleep heralds an equally good day.

Not that he has many of those.

Because, well, he's Sasuke. And his neighbor…well.

Sakura leans over her railing with shining eyes, crossed arms braced against metal, stretching out far enough that her feet rise off the ground. She locks eyes with Sasuke and very conspiratorially whispers, "Sasuke-kun. Take me movie-hopping."

Sasuke is very, _very_ tempted to retreat inside, barricade himself with thin glass and curtains, and forget this incredulous request.

When he begins to take a step backward, Sakura's face falls. Her previous glee slips away and her hands curl in on themselves, nails biting into pale flesh and she suddenly wants to launch herself through the space between the two balconies. She wants to tackle Sasuke – knock him down, and – and maybe his stupid pretentiousness will go down with him –

Sakura's feet touch concrete and she grips the railing. "Sasuke-kun –," she begins, "Sasuke-kun."

She can't explain why she needs him to acquiesce, why she needs him to accompany her, in the most dead of night – she honestly has no idea why she decided to ask Sasuke-kun to go _movie-hopping_ of all things. He has never been one for illicit activities, has never found the fierce joy Sakura knows so well from the spontaneous; Sasuke plans his days meticulously – Sakura suspects (but never asks aloud) that he finds solace in the mundane, after years of turmoil and familial issues.

Sakura knows this – has always known, because she is Sakura, and maybe the association of _stalker_ with her person has faded over the many years, but she learns her relations well. She's smart, exceptionally so, and she's observant. This all sums up to the fact that she has no idea what she's doing.

But she can't back down now. She's thrown herself over the precipice and she will stick around for better or for worse, because she's Sakura and ten years of friendship and/or neighborship warrant her at least this – the chance to be the instigator, for once. To consciously attempt to change not just her life, but another's (in the smallest of ways, in tiny steps and minuscule shifts – but change nonetheless).

She cares too much to ever forget Sasuke-kun, and she is just a bleeding heart because she's never been able to leave him alone – and – and –

"Okay."

Sakura leans back abruptly. "Huh?"

Sasuke finally, finally turns, eyes wary, and sighs, "Okay. Okay – just – meet me…meet me by my car."

He strides indoors and Sakura, left in shock on her balcony, only smiles deliriously when she's sure he's drawn the curtains back in place.

She hurries downstairs and outside, to where Sasuke's parked his beat up old Honda (he had, at sixteen, refused any of the money left to him by his family – he'd worked for a year and twenty-three days and Sakura fell in love with his car at first sight; she'd refused to think about the relation between a car and its owner and named it Leonard because she could) and pats it once, lovingly, before pulling the latch to the passenger's seat door and scrambling inside.

Sakura turns to Sasuke, who is eyeing her much like one might eye a mentally unstable incarcerate. She inhales deeply, and speaks.

"I've missed Leonard."

An incredulous huff of breath escapes Sasuke before he can snatch it back and Sakura grins at him.

"What? It's true. Leonard is, like, Ours. Yours, mine, and Naruto's. If I were a boy – watch me go all Beyoncé on you – if I were a boy, Leonard would be our bromance car. Seriously. Have you ever thought about how awesome it would be if – "

"Sakura, I do not need to hear about your twisted bromance fantasies."

"They're just too beautiful for you."

A pause.

"Ugh, I'm channeling Naruto, huh?"

Sasuke nods curtly, starting Leonard up with a muffled roar of engines and turbines.

Sakura pulls a face and smiles anyway, because, even if only for tonight, Sasuke-kun is hers. She is a selfish woman, yes, but she likes to think she deserves these few hours.

And – and he said yes. Well, he said 'okay' but she knows Sasuke and the implications behind his agreement are not lost to her.

And now – there are so many possibilities. After all, if Sasuke-kun agreed to go movie-hopping with her, Sakura dares to hope, maybe – maybe – and she really doesn't mind that she sounds like anything but her disillusioned, Practical self. This is all in her head.

"Sakura." Sasuke's low, smooth voice startles her out of her thoughts and she glances over at him. He blinks somberly before shifting his attention back to the road, his face dappled gold by streetlamps. "What movies did you want to watch?"

And Sakura sighs, because she is so, so content.

"It doesn't matter, Sasuke-kun."

"What do you mean?" and Sakura has to remind herself, _tiny steps_, before gesturing grandly at something – anything – before her.

"I mean it doesn't matter, Sasuke-kun. Movie-hopping basically means we won't see the entirety of a film, because we'll just skip out when it gets boring. If it doesn't get boring, then we'll stay. And, anyway," Sakura worries her bottom lip apprehensively, takes a deep breath, continues. "Anyway, it doesn't even matter if we're movie-hopping or not."

Sasuke shoots her another look and stays quiet. It gets serious, fast.

Sakura's pause is almost imperceptible, but she's been holding back these words for years and they come tumbling from her lips, finally, because she knows now what it feels like to leap out into nothing.

"It's you."

She states this simply, and her voice is soft, lilting. Barely there but easily heard anyway, because Sasuke is a good listener. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Naruto loves ramen, it's youyouyou.

"You're what matters. Always – it's you."

Her confidence fades all too fast.

The silence now is so thick she wants to roll down a window and urge the sound of after-midnight traffic into the car and between her and Sasuke.

Sakura screws her eyes shut and wishes she hadn't spoken. Her stomach makes to drop out of existence and it's hard to breathe and she really, really wasn't prepared for this and she scrambles to recover some semblance of normality. She needs a barrier – something – anything –

"Forget it. Sorry – forget – forget I said anything," Sakura bites out. She's looking away now, away from Sasuke and his unreadable expression and the proverbial edge she'd just foolishly thrown herself off, and gazes pointedly into Leonard's side mirror. Green eyes, now almost gray with apprehension, gaze back at her.

This is the part where Sakura plays pretend: she pretends she isn't blushing horridly and she pretends she has the guts to say all she needs to, that for once she can be unafraid of feeling what she does.

Pretend is not much, but it's enough, at least for her to twist her neck decisively and stare Sasuke in the eyes. This time around, she refuses to break eye contact because she's done that already – mentally, Sakura berates herself. She'd stepped off the edge and she had sworn she would see it through and 'it', to Sakura, includes all of this.

So she keeps her eyes locked on Sasuke, who has long since parked Leonard in the theater parking lot. She gazes hard at him, praying from the back of her mind and the bottom of her heart that he will keep his promise.

"Sakura." Sasuke hesitates, uncertain for once and hating himself for not knowing what to say. "Sakura –"

He swallows hard. What is he supposed to say? He has never been one to entertain Sakura's childhood fantasies, has never encouraged her to develop any emotional attachment to him. He is twisted and reclusive (socially retarded, if Naruto is to be believed) and wholly undeserving of any affection from this foolish, brave girl sitting beside him.

Sasuke has let Sakura (and Naruto, but when Sasuke thinks 'disappointment' he sees green eyes and candy-floss hair) down so many times he is completely lost as to why she bothers to speak to him at all.

(He knows, though, in the deepest corner of his heart, that the reason he is woken up at two in the morning and is called upon constantly as a chauffeur is because Sakura is too caring and forgiving to force him to meet her expectations; she changes hearts before she changes minds. Sakura is either a stupid girl too dumb to walk away, or she is one who's courageous enough to run the race to the finish regardless of heartbreak or letdown, a girl brave enough to hope for the near-impossible.)

Somewhere along his thought process, Sasuke realizes this:

Above all, Haruno Sakura believes in second chances.

His hands grip the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white, and he looks up automatically at the girl in the passenger seat and sees gray-green and he has no idea what this blankness in his mind means or what he's about to tell her but he opens his mouth anyway and takes the first step.

"That…that movie with the hypnotist – it looked pretty interesting."

And it takes a couple of seconds for Sakura to realize what Sasuke's getting at but suddenly she's smiling wide, teeth glinting in the near-darkness, eyes curved joyfully and she can't stop, she can't stop at all.

Sakura shifts in her seat, ready now to step out into the open air, her right hand poised over the door latch. She stops for a moment and looks back over her shoulder at Sasuke. He's sitting, half-turned toward her, and he looks as content or relaxed as she's ever seen him.

And because she is Sakura and knows his limitations, she clambers out of the front seat without further ado, stretches briefly in the moonlight, and then pauses to wait for Sasuke. Her worries, at least for the night, slip off her shoulders and she can barely resist twirling around gleefully, baggy t-shirt and pajama pants forgotten.

In a few moments, Sasuke will climb out of Leonard too, and Sakura will grab his hand and drag him toward the dimly glowing theater, and she will tease and poke and nag him shamelessly and he will follow along only slightly reluctantly, mostly for show, anyway, because he will smile secretly down at Sakura when she's busy scanning the halls for satisfactory films, or when she's shielding her eyes from imminent zombie invasions, or when she's ranting about evil psycho serial-killer hypnotist psychos (and he won't bother to inform her of her redundancy) and everything will be okay.

* * *

.

.

.

"Sasuke-kun, I hope you realize this means you'll have to be my driver forever. Me and Leonard are like, _bros_ now. You can't separate us, man."

"If you say so."

"I do. So, uhm, ha."

"Hn."

"And, Sasuke-kun, if I ever really throw myself at your balcony, you'll catch me, right?"

"What are you even – what are you talking about?"

"Just – you'll catch me. Right?"

"Sakura, are you dumb?"

"Psh. No."

"Then I shouldn't have to tell you."

"…"

"…"

"Sasuke-kun, Naruto was right. You really _are_ socially retarded."

* * *

**A/N:** So, wow. It's been a very long time. I didn't actually know what I was going to write when I sat down at the computer two days ago; I just knew that I needed to write something. And because I am a sap...Hm.


End file.
